I got a request for a baby quilt for Rosemary, new sister of Fiona (whose quilt I made in March, 2022). As one might guess, the parents wanted a quilt with roses. They suggested colorful roses with a background of cream and a border of black. Black!? For a baby quilt? I gently pushed back and they agreed to let me come up with the design.
I found a pattern for "Stitch and Flip Rose Blocks Quilt". The idea was to cut different colored fabric pieces into "crazy shapes"; that is, irregular polygons with odd angles. Then, starting with a center piece, you would build the "roses" using a Log Cabin approach. Sew each piece along an edge, then trim, turn, and do the next piece along that straight edge. So I started with shades of red for one rose, purple for another, yellow for a third. Thus, each rose would be unique. Each one was also supposed to have the outer edges of green fabric, to represent the leaves. I wanted to end up with 8" squares.
As I began sewing, I realized that I shouldn't take "irregular" too literally. So the scrap pieces quickly became triangular, though with varying lengths and heights. I made the first block. Hmmmmm. Not so sure. I then made two others and put them on the wall. OK....looks like blocks with crazy multi-colored triangular log cabins. Nothing at all like roses!!!!
Normally I share the patterns I use, but since this one was such a disaster, I am not going to do so.
What to do?
3-sided didn't work. Of course....roses aren't 3-sided! So I figured a pentagon would be better. Be gone, you triangle blocks! Started over with pentagons. At this point I also realized that, yes, individual roses have some variation, but each type is basically the same. Flowers of the yellow variety all look pretty similar, though different from the red variety (which also look the same to each other). So for this attempt, I picked a number of reds and yellows, and used the same ones in the same order for each rose. I also used the same greens for the yellows and a different set for the reds. Made a couple of blocks. Hmmmm...not much better! 5 sides were better than 3, but there was still that odd point.
Now what?
6 sides of course! No "odd" point calling attention to itself. I mulled on this for a few days, and then thought, "If 6 is better than 5, then 8 would be better than 6!". Roses are sort of circular; the middle section and then all the petals radially symmetric around it. 8 it is!
And up to this point, I had been adding two or three layers of "leaves" and leaving (LOL) the last go-around big enough to fill out the 8" square. That was not working either. So I looked in my stash and OMG! I found a 4-yard length of fabric that was perfect! Why did I have so much of this? At some point I must have bought it and then decided not to use it? When? For what? No idea. But don't look a gift horse in the mouth. What makes it perfect? The pattern is small leaves and twigs on a dark green background, that almost looks black! OK...close enough to what they wanted.
And I was right; the octagons are probably better than the hexagons would have been and tons better than the other shapes. Do they look like roses? Well.......maybe if you squint and use your imagination.
I went with 5 yellows and 4 reds (because there were 9 blocks in all).
For the border I got a cream-colored fabric (as requested) with small white curlicues (almost rose-shaped)?
The back is a print of tiny roses (yes....actual roses) on an off-white background.
Here it is:
What do you think?
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